Nick Cave and Mick Harvey

London

(May 17, 1981)

I first met Nick Cave and guitarist Mick Harvey of the Birthday Party in 1980 a couple of days after they had immigrated to London from Australia. The Birthday Party were a tight-knit group of old school pals who weren’t very interested in being photographed despite their publicists’ encouragement. However they were good fun and Nick clowned around wearing plastic devil’s horns on his head.I photographed the band about four or five times and I always had to convince them that we couldn’t shoot yet another session in their local pub. This photo was taken in a London squat soon after their arrival from Australia.